


There's No Remedy for Memory

by morphogenesis



Category: Silent Hill
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 05:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphogenesis/pseuds/morphogenesis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Alessa, you're the one who won't leave me alone," Claudia said, her voice sounding as warm as she ever could. "I'm...glad you miss me." (Claudia/Heather, underage, violence, post-canon)</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's No Remedy for Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ansemaru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ansemaru/gifts).



> Day 1 of the Nano prompting fest I did in lieu of a novel this year. The name change should be self-explanatory if you finished the game. Also a fill for the 10lillies prompt "Quiet."

Waking up, Cheryl was struck by the warmth trapped between her clothes and her skin, like she was flushed all over, burning.

For a moment, she was still in-between dreaming and waking, and she expected to open her eyes and see --

Claudia.

And just like that, the itching arousal in her stomach and the stickiness of her thighs turned to churning revulsion, and her teeth clenched involuntarily, and she exhaled in a groan.  
Claudia dreams made her want to take a shower after they happened, and she rolled out of bed like any other awkward morning, not even waiting to be fully awake as she struggled with the curtain and the dials, standing under lukewarm water with shit water pressure and yawning, the sound magnified by the tight space.

She waited to feel something other than dread, however long that took, until her skin stopped crawling even at her own touch, remembering her own dreams.

Nowhere to hide from the phantom hands of a dead woman.

\---

When she'd come home -- with Douglas, nowhere else to go as a 17 year-old now-high school dropout (nobody could make her remotely go back and pretend everything was normal again, and Douglas had let it go with a shrug and a "It's your life,") and a father whose death she couldn't explain -- she had dreams about Silent Hill that made her lurch awake in a cold sweat. She'd stay awake watching television until only infomercials were on, and even past then.

Douglas never told her to leave. He told her to get a job, get her GED, stop slamming doors, wash the dishes, "You're too young to drink," think about her future sometimes, and it was sort of like having a parent again, except he wasn't her Dad and he didn't understand the years of history behind her the way Dad had, because Dad had been there.

Their shared years of memories that she could no longer trust or look back on without wondering how her father could act normal and be her Dad for so many years when he must have always been remembering that town.

That daughter.

One time, she'd been spurred to teary nostalgia, unlike herself, by going through boxes that held the contents of her old apartment. She'd brought everything with her -- everything she hadn't thrown out anyway. Most of that had been junk mail, old things from her own room, but everything of Dad's had been preserved. She didn't even remember packing with a purpose, she'd been so focused on getting out as soon as possible, but she imagined she must have been protective of Dad's space, his relics.

Her dad's books and old notebooks had stared at her from the third box she'd opened, and she'd had to sit down.

"We couldn't talk to Dad's family, or else...we were afraid somebody from The Order would find us. There are so many things I thought I'd have time to ask him about, about his life and what he wrote." She'd rubbed at her eyes. "It's stupid, I can't change any of this, but I'm still upset."

Douglas had looked at her, with the sadness of someone who used to be a parent, and said: "I haven't seen a World Series game in five years."

"Thanks, that really makes me feel better."

"No, I mean...I used to watch them with my son. And not watching them won't bring him back, but I still can't do it. Maybe it's dumb, or maybe it's grief." He closed the box up, and she felt a swell of guilty, gracious relief. "Take a break from this."

She stood up and started to leave the basement, and he followed her. "That's so cheesy I need a beer."

"Stay out of my booze!"

"Bite me, old man."

And the next day she'd gone to the community college, ambivalently scrawled her name on a half-dozen forms to enroll in a GED prep course, and then walked up and down a local strip mall looking for a part-time job. Life was going to go on somehow, she'd determined.

Then the Claudia dreams had started.

Cheryl wanted, desperately, to chalk it up to Alessa's influence, as loath as she was to believe Alessa influenced her at all, even though she vividly remembered their moments of resonance in Silent Hill.

But she remembered Alessa, and she remembered how Alessa had felt about Claudia, and the love there was pure and childlike, not...

Not a motivation for these intensely sexual dreams she kept having, and waking up feeling sick and repulsed from.

And, more damning, Cheryl was herself in those dreams, in her own body, doing things with a woman she hated more than anyone, even in death.

\---

"Alessa,"

"Leave me alone," Cheryl moaned, covering her face.

She was aware she was dreaming -- or at least, she hoped she was and this wasn't a new Silent Hill phenomenon -- but she felt powerless to actually wake up.

She felt a hand on her arm, moving up closer to her body, and she breathed, taking a moment to think about how this would go.

When she fought Claudia, she turned into monsters or she disappeared or sometimes she just stood there and took injury after injury, blows with bludgeons and bullets, and turned into pulp and blood and didn't scream.

When she stood there, nothing more happened than this hand, on her arm, the only warm spot on her body, until she woke up.

When she leaned in to the touch, and played along, well...

"Alessa, you're the one who won't leave me alone," Claudia said, her voice sounding as warm as she ever could. "I'm...glad you miss me."

And Cheryl exhaled, and moved.

\---

So in the morning, Cheryl woke up at 10am whether she had to work or go to class or not, and would lie in bed, processing. Sometimes she had to immediately shower off the sensations of Claudia, and sometimes she could breathe easier.

Some dreams it was just the hand, and she could get an early start on the day.

Some dreams it was the violence, and she felt she should really look into the fact that the violence made her more comfortable than the sex.

The middle of the day was boring. Sometimes it was frustrating, but mostly boring and she could lull herself into forgetting.

It was when it was time to go to sleep she began to worry, and she'd press it down with the same mantra: "Tonight I won't see her."

And every night she had to say that, she was wrong.


End file.
